Sarah Young helps students with their work during class at the Bridgeway Academy in Dartmouth in this file photo. The school is up for a $25,000 fitness award. (INGRID BULMER / Staff / File)

A Nova Scotia school is among 10 national finalists in a contest to win up to $25,000, and it needs your vote to help it win.

Bridgeway Academy, a non-profit school for children with learning disabilities, is the only Nova Scotian organization in the running in the GoodLife Kids Foundation’s Win 4 Kids contest.

Each of the 10 finalists will receive $5,000, but other monetary prizes will be awarded to the organizations that garner the most votes. The winner will get $25,000 and runners-up will receive $12,000 and $8,000.

The contest, which funds programs that help get kids physically active, drew more than 150 nominations this year.

Sue Blanchard nominated Bridgeway Academy for the contest. Both Blanchard and her 12-year-old son have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and she knows the difference that physical activity can make.

“When I’m stressed out or my thoughts get going too much, I go to the gym. You work yourself out until you’re tired. It’s just healthy body, healthy mind,” she said.

“All the kids in that school have a hard time learning. You can see them struggle. I knew this would help the kids.”

Blanchard said she also threw Bridgeway Academy's name into the hat to thank the school for helping her son, who is a student there.

“I always felt like I owed them something,” she said. “This way, I felt like I was giving back.”

Although she sent in the application, Blanchard said she didn’t expect much to come of it.

“I really didn’t think we would get in, because it’s across Canada,” she said. “The next thing I know, we were on the phone, and then here we are.”

The school is up against Easter Seals in Newfoundland and Labrador, school board programs in British Columbia and Ontario and an immigrant and refugee organization in Manitoba, among others.

Bridgeway Academy has campuses in Dartmouth, Truro and Yarmouth.

Whether it wins $5,000 or $25,000, it will use the money for gym equipment, including a treadmill, an elliptical machine and balancing balls, Blanchard said.